Jack Pattenden

“Red waistcoat, tailcoat, and had to open the door for all the visitors in the coaches or cars as it were, according to the period, letting them in the front door, wicket door, each time they come to visit the local residents, Lord and Lady Sackville.”

Interviewer: I should think he looked very splendid, didn’t he? 

“Well he did really.”

Interviewer: You said he had a hat with a cockade I believe, as well?”

“Yes,  a top hat with a cockade.

Of course when the war broke out that was stopped, but they agreed to allow my mother to carry on.

So we stayed.  We moved from the Laundry round to the Front Wicket and we took our apartments in what was then, or originally, the old Guard House, the Guard Room.   Our front, our sort of actual sitting room was surrounded by flintlocks, swords and halberds. 

There was two rooms upstairs, the bedrooms, and we lived there all through the First World War.”

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